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Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

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Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#121

Post by psychoslave »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54
hipadev23 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just acquired the company two weeks prior and layoffs are extremely common after one.

I don't think anyone is too worried about the layoffs, but these look like targeted layoffs, reinforcing the notion that union members / representatives are troublesome. At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway.

>I don't think anyone is too worried about the layoffs

Yeah sure, why care about the people that built the working machine and their family, as long as the 1% can get profit out of the machine?

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#122

Post by dathinab »

bananaquant wrote: post #32
extraduder_ire wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the headline, and remembering that 50% of employees were laid off, my first thought was: "what're the odds?" I assume I'd have to use NCR or something to calculate that. I know the upper (rarest) bound is 1/2^40, but it's likely much more likely, and not random.

As an HR would say, those people are "a bad cultural fit", which legitimately raises the probability of them being laid off to 100%. Simple.

still not legitimate, because then any laying of on union members/leaders could be legitimized that way

in any country which properly enforces labor protection law laying of any union leaders without the agreement of the union is extremely hard and requires missteps of the members like e.g. stealing. Or really unusual situations like you lay of half of the members and over half of the members have young children (or e.g. are disabled, project leaders etc.) but non of the union members have any of that. The likelihood of which is basically 0 in practice.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#123

Post by varispeed »

the_other wrote: post #55
ivolimmen wrote: post #49

I find it so weird to read these stories on how Americans cope with unionizing. In the Netherlands where I live it is very common and normal to be member of a union. Most branches have a union, IT sector is a "free sector" and does not have a union. My wife works as a teacher and she is member of a union.

In the UK, many IT roles can join the Communication Workers Union[0] [0]: https://www.cwu.org/

Thanks to updated IR35 employers can bypass unions altogether. As IT deemed employees don't get any employment rights.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#124

Post by comatory »

rsolva wrote: post #99

Bandcamp has served me well for many years, but I don't use it anymore. I would really like to see something like Castopod [0], but for artists! Spinning up a website where you showcase and sell your music should (and could!) be as easy as using Wordpress, either via a subscription or self-hosted – on your own domain. Being plugged into the Fediverse makes it much easier to interact with fans and build a connection w…

If you're not a technical type you will not be bothered with setting up a website so that's why I think centralized services will always win. It's similar to why people don't make their own websites but just post to social media.

I can imagine a 1-click solution that would set up everything. But bandcamp also has this functionality where labels can list their artists etc so I think it wouldn't work that well.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#125

Post by looping8 »

psychoslave wrote: post #121
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is too worried about the layoffs, but these look like targeted layoffs, reinforcing the notion that union members / representatives are troublesome. At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway.

>I don't think anyone is too worried about the layoffs Yeah sure, why care about the people that built the working machine and their family, as long as the 1% can get profit out of the machine?

They probably mean in the context of the thread. Layoffs are not a good thing, definitely not with Bandcamp, where the curators and writers are essential. But they are specifically bad in this context if they target union team members.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#126

Post by vanderZwan »

username332211 wrote: post #90
vanderZwan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teachers are unionized here and are one of the most powerful political forces. This does not seem compatible with all the stories I've heard about underpaid teachers having to buy material for their students out of their own pocket. I'm sure it somehow ends up both being true in a twisted way, but it still sounds strange.

If you think about it, American teachers are the most obvious example of why unionization doesn't necessarily improve anything at all. An average class of 24 costs just short of $700k per year to the citizens of New York City and the cost is rising rapidly every year. Meanwhile, teachers are supposed to be underpaid, overworked and exploited. I guess teachers are supposed to take solace in the fact they are very powe…

That is an absurd conclusion to draw without looking at the details of what the various organizations and institutions actually structurally do in practice.

It's not like the whole system is a magical black box that just does what it does and there is no way of knowing what is going on.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#127

Post by fernandotakai »

derrida wrote: post #61
nemo44x wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT doesn’t traditionally gafe unions in the USA. Teachers are unionized here and are one of the most powerful political forces. They are also a likely reason why so many people here don’t like unions.

And in the EU it is probably why they have free healthcare, high minimum wage, work weeks of 34-38 hrs, welfare, 8 hour work days, overtime after, high proportion of part time workers, and highest productivity per hour in Germany. But yeah, unions, hate what you gotta hate. I personally hate long hours for bullshit pay.

>free healthcare

i mean, i live in the netherlands, and i pay (and it's not that cheap) for my family's healthcare. and it's obligatory.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#128

Post by oblio »

0xpgm wrote: post #92
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is too worried about the layoffs, but these look like targeted layoffs, reinforcing the notion that union members / representatives are troublesome. At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway.

> At the very least, for the sake of optics, they shouldn't have fired the union reps. Not all of them anyway. We're all making assumptions here, but let's assume they had legitimate business reasons for the layoffs. What you suggest is that they make less optimal decisions for the sake of optics. In a free-market economy, the companies that make less optimal decisions will have their lunch eaten by those that don't.

> In a free-market economy, the companies that make less optimal decisions will have their lunch eaten by those that don't.

When the downfall of some of these companies takes more than a life time, who gives a hoot?

Lots and lots of companies are starting to be too big to (fully) fail.

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#129

Post by youngtaff »

varispeed wrote: post #123
the_other wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, many IT roles can join the Communication Workers Union[0] [0]: https://www.cwu.org/

Thanks to updated IR35 employers can bypass unions altogether. As IT deemed employees don't get any employment rights.

Umbrella companies are going to be in for a rude awakening sooner or later

As someone who's outside IR35 I can't see the point in being inside rather than just taking a full time role with a company, sure there's some flexibility but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in my view

Re: Bandcamp's Entire Union Bargaining Team Was Laid Off

#130

Post by Traubenfuchs »

the_other wrote: post #50

In the UK we have large unions that represent the individuals regardless where they work. I’ve not heard of company-specific unions here, although I’ve not looked for them either. Presumably companies must still recognise the unions. Is it more common in the US to have company-specific unions? Are the large “independent” unions present at all? I would assume that being larger and independent of an employer would make…

In Austria, companies can have a Betriebsrat, the... company-council, I suppose. It's made up of employees and they have some legal powers like delaying someone getting fired, they should provide legal health and generally support employees in any kind of "altercation" with the employer/manager side etc.

It's not mandatory and not all companies have it. I once joked, at my first job: "We should create a Betriebsrat!", my boss took me to his office and explained to me for an hour how horrible those are for a company. Companies are absolutely not allowed to prevent employees from forming one and he was incredibly afraid of having one in his company...

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